My musings about human behavior and how we can design the world around us to better accommodate real human needs.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Visible reminders to repurchase.

Here is a rare Idea of the Day that is solidly housed in the
low tech world.A powerful technique to
increase sales to existing customers is to make sure that when they use up the
first one (of whatever itemit is you’re
selling), they buy another one.This has
three major benefits.

If they don’t buy yours
right away, they have time to consider buying the competition

If they don’t buy yours
right away, they might realize they don’t need it at all.

The more time that elapses
between sales, the fewer opportunities you have to sell over the long term

So it is to your company’s advantage to have a salient signal
of some kind when the customer is about to use up the current item to remind
them to obtain a replacement.Autoreplenish is easy when we are talking about monthly subscriptions,
prescriptions that are taken on a consistent basis, or electronic products that
can signal directly to the company through the Internet that they are about to
run out.

But what about all the millions of physical products?The state of the art in ubiquitous computing
hasn’t quite got to the point that when your milk is about to run out (or
spoil), it sends a message to the store to send a new one. For now, we need
lower tech solutions.But if you put a
date on the package, that is not very salient.And that doesn’t work for when products are about to run out and the
package doesn’t make it as obvious.

Here are a few good ones that Bri Williams at People
Patterns recently blogged about
and then a few others that I have seen around that seem clever.

When you get close to the
bottom of a box of tissues, you can kind of tell that it is getting low,
but it is hard to tell exactly.And
for the square ones that fluff out the next tissue from the top you have even less
idea.What if the last 10 tissues
are a slightly different color?In
fact the last 10 could get progressively darker (or lighter depending on
the starting color). Bri also
suggests they get progressively scratchy, but I have had enough runny
noses to be firmly against that idea.You could do something similar to this for anything that comes in
rolls.Toilet paper, tin foil,
cling wrap – all of these could change color, pattern, or something when
you get towards the end.

A related problem is that
when you are using the product you know you are getting near the end, but
then when you are in the store (or even when you are near your shopping
list) you forget.So what if you
put a tag on the product that the customer could pull off when they were
about to run out.For the tissue
box the tag could be hidden inside the box ten tissues from the bottom.Or rolled into the cling wrap 10 feet
from the end of the roll.They you
put the tag in your pocket and it is there when you need it.Similar to this is a wine bottle that
has a tag on the label so if you want to remember a great wine you have at
a party or in a restaurant you don’t need to bring the whole bottle home.For this last one you could take a
photo with your phone, but that also might not come to mind when you are
shopping.

Some other ideas.

How about making the
product change color as it ages?This would serve as a reminder for products that don't get used up, but rather
wear out or lose their hygiene after a certain amount of time, but where
this is not obvious.I have seen a
toothbrush that does this by having some blue coloring on the bristles
that disappears as the brush is used and when it is gone it is time to get
a new toothbrush.Where else can we
use this idea?Your pillow?I have no idea how old mine is or if it
needs replacing.Firmness is fine,
but hygiene?Not a clue.Sponges?Water bottle? All of them could be designed to change color as they get near their unhygienic state. I have seen a
version of this proposed for produce and raw meat.As it gets near the spoilage date,
something on the label changes color.Or if the temperature gets too high for safety, it also has some
kind of salient signal.

How about a mechanical signal?When you get to the end of your lip
balm, there is a little hole in the center that is made by the shaft that
rolls it up or down.I am not sure
if this was intentionally used as a signal that the tube is running out,
but it works.What else comes in a
tube?Could we do this with a roll
on condiment container?This would
be a cool dispenser for peanut butter for many reasons.You spin the wheel on the bottom and up
comes an easily measured, easily removed serving of peanut butter.And there would be none wasted at the
end.No more trying to get those
last few bits from the bottom of the jar.